Waltz of Shadows

  He handed me the video. On the outside of it was a little label and on it was written Fat Man and Doc. He scrounged some more and came up with Bill and the Train.

  Cute guy, this Dave.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Check’m,” Arnold said.

  I turned the audio knob on Dave’s TV down and fired up the VCR and put one of the cassettes in. We fast forwarded it. It was good quality. Dave had known what he was doing. There was a guy in a nice suit walking up the bank steps and there was a fat man walking down the steps. I killed it there.

  Bill gave me the other one.

  I put it in and raced it forward until we came to Bill with his pants down, tied to the railroad track.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I put the video cassettes in my coat pocket turned off the VCR, the TV and the light. Arnold popped the lighter on. We followed him to the front door. Arnold cracked it open.

  “Clear,” he said.

  We went out and moved rapidly along the outside ramp in the same direction the night watchman had taken.

  We went down the stairs, listening and watching. We crossed the apartment complex yard and made the sidewalk and turned back in the direction we had come without getting yelled at.

  When we were in the pickup, I let out a sigh of relief. I started up and hit the road.

  “Piece of cake,” Arnold said.

  “Yeah,” Bill said, pulling off the mouse gloves. “That was kind of fun… Did you see the tits and legs on that babe?”

  “You’re some piece of work, Bill,” I said. “Think back, it was your narrow-minded, lead with your dick attitude got you into this mess in the first place.”

  “Shit,” Bill said. “You’re right. That pussy, man it’s some deadly stuff.”

  “No,” Arnold said. “What’s deadly is how fucking stupid you are.”

  “Yeah, well, anyway,” Bill said, “her and the guy, you got to say one thing for them. They were championship pissers, don’t you think?”

  15

  Morning was arriving by the time I reached my subdivision. The moon was still visible, fading out like a honey-colored throat lozenge sucked too thin. Cauliflower clouds swelled out of the arriving blue as if ripening, rolled across the heavens at a medium boil, made soft shadows that tumbled along the slate-colored highway and subdivision blacktop and concrete drive that led up to our house.

  I parked in the garage and didn’t go inside right away. I stuffed the videotapes under the car seat, went out the side garage door and stood for a moment and watched the morning bloom. I wanted to commune with nature a spell before Beverly ripped my head off, split my gut and stuffed me with hot stones and sewed me back together.

  Eventually I got up my nerve and went in the house through the back door.

  Wylie, his porcupine in his mouth, nearly knocked me down. I kneed him in the chest and he went away, disappointed as usual. I stopped in the kitchen, afraid to turn the corner, lest I meet Beverly face to face.

  Sammy was already up for school, and he appeared on the scene shortly after Wylie left. When he saw me, he said, “You’re in some deep shit.”

  “Hey!” I said. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “That’s what Mama said.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t have said that. She’s just mad. She gets mad she doesn’t know what she’s saying. You’re not mad, you know what you’re saying.”

  “Okay, Daddy. I’m just telling.”

  “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  “What happened to your face?” Sammy asked.

  “I banged myself up a little,” I said. “An accident. I’ll explain later.”

  Beverly came around the corner and looked at me. The sparks that jumped behind her eyes made me think of the Bride of Frankenstein.

  “Hi, hon,” I said.

  “Don’t hon me, mister.”

  That mister stuff was always a bad sign.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “An accident,” I said.

  “You’re close to having another one, mister.”

  “Something came up,” I said. “I can explain it. Kind of an emergency.”

  “Your mother called after you left, so I knew you should have been back. When you didn’t show, I got worried some. Not a lot, but some. I don’t like to worry. And then you came in late and didn’t leave a note. I know you were here. I woke up about three looking for you, came down and saw you’d left the pay, Daddeanut butter out. You didn’t screw the lid back on the jar or put the fork in the dishwasher.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “The peanut butter dried out a little, and you laid the fork on the table, and now there’s peanut butter all over the table cloth.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And you didn’t call.”

  Sammy was watching all this with great interest. He moved his head first to his Mom, then to me. Wylie had also reappeared. He too was watching, the porcupine between his teeth. I knew that I was, at this very moment, contributing to the education of boy and dog on how to handle domestic affairs.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Oh, boy. I’ll say, you’re sorry, all right. Take Sammy to school. When you get back you’re gonna get it, mister.”

  Sammy got his backpack and we went out and got in my truck. “Mama hates that part about the peanut butter,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I leave it out all the time.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “It’s all right, Daddy. She’ll get over it.”

  “I hope so.” I opened the garage door with the remote and cranked up the truck and eased out.

  · · ·

  When I got home Bev was gone. She had driven JoAnn to school. I made sure the coffee was going, then waited on Bev by playing toss the porcupine with Wylie. It made his day. He was so excited I thought he was going to shit himself. He didn’t want to quit playing when I heard Bev drive up, but I went and washed my hands at the kitchen sink and ignored his pushing against my leg.

  I dried my hands and poured a couple of cups of coffee and waited for Bev to come in.

  When she did, I said, “We got to talk.”

  “I’ll say,” she said.

  Wylie recognized the signals. He and his little yellow porcupine went away.

  “What happened to your eye and lip?”

  Bev got her cereal and a bowl and poured her milk and ate, not getting in a hurry about it. When she finished we took our coffee outside on the deck.

  It was warming up. The day was bright. There were birds happily singing everywhere. I guess none of them had nephews who were in trouble.

  We sat in the deck chairs, and while we sipped coffee, I talked. I told her everything Bill had told me, and I told her what Bill and Arnold and me had done last night, about the mistake in the rooms, everything. I didn’t mention her Mickey Mouse gloves.

  While I was on a roll I told her about the time I had gone with Arnold to the liquor store and what had handkey Mappened there, and I couldn’t look at her when I talked about it, but I found a lizard on the deck railing to talk to, and I addressed the story to him and his face showed no evidence of shock or surprise. He took it well, as if that was exactly the sort of behavior he expected of me.

  When I finished, I said, “Now you know the kind of guy you married.”

  “You think after twenty years I don’t know the kind of guy I married or thought I did? You could have told me all this. You should have. Instead of me, you went to Arnold, your half-brother. A person you haven’t had anything to do with in years.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “We been worrying the hell out of each other for twenty years. Why stop now?”

  “I figured when I had it all thought out, I’d tell you.”

  “But you didn’t mind telling Arnold before you had it thought out. Right?”

  “Can I just s
ay I’m stupid and get out of this?”

  “I’ll tell you what you can do. You can let me know how all this is going, and consider me a partner like you’ve always done before, and you can quit trying to protect my feelings all the time.”

  “All right,” I said. “Starting now.”

  “Then you can start by telling me what’s next.”

  “The lawyer,” I said.

  “I presume the lawyer is Virgil Griffith?”

  “He’s the only lawyer I know personally.”

  “He’s good. Least, I always hear he’s good. What comes to me, though, darling, is how do you explain to him the way you got those tapes? It might be said that the evidence was obtained illegally, and is therefore useless. Breaking and entering and theft are still illegal. Right?”

  The kind of warm feeling you get when you’re a kid and realize you’ve just filled your pants came over me.

  16

  I got the video tapes out of my truck and went around and unlocked my study, which is the bottom floor of our place, and separate of the rest of the house; a kind of mother-in-law quarters.

  I slipped inside feeling disappointed. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of the cassettes being dismissed as evidence, due to the way they were obtained.

  Still, I didn’t let that stop me. I took the cassettes over to my TV and laid them on top, and went to work.

  I have video duplicating equipment down there, because to explain it bluntly, I often duplicate copies of movies for personal use. It’s also a place where I repair damage to rental videos, something I’ve gotten damned good at.

  I cleaned the heads on the machines first, then made copies of the videos we had stolen and watched them while they recorded. There really wasn’t anything in the video with Dandke onoc and Fat Boy to assure a jury that money was exchanging hands, but it was certainly suspicious looking, and would convince a jury that Bill hadn’t made up Fat Boy.

  I took Fat Boy’s appearance in as best I could, for future reference. He dressed like a poster child for bad taste. He walked like his feet were killing him. He was certainly fat, and he walked funny, but the meat on him didn’t jiggle. It was a hard kind of fat, well-marbled, like a show hog, and his arms were big and firm beneath his coat, filling out the sleeves the way sausage meat fills out a casing. The rest of him was average looking. He didn’t appear to be someone who would take money for shooting someone in cold blood.

  As for the other cassette, it helped establish that there was in fact a Disaster Club. I came away from seeing it feeling Bill was dumber than I thought, getting mixed up in something like that.

  I also decided Sharon had been one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen, and obviously one of the most messed up.

  I finished making the copies and fell asleep.

  When I awoke, I rolled over and glanced at the clock on the wall. I had been asleep for about an hour and a half. I didn’t feel exactly renewed, but I didn’t feel that my brain was a coconut packed with sand anymore.

  I looked Arnold up in the phone book and called him. I wanted to connect. I felt strange, not having talked to him after all those years, then, in one evening and a night and an early morning, we had talked and argued and broken into a couple of apartments and stolen some possibly incriminating video tapes. It seemed like every day business. Very comfortable. Maybe we could start robbing filling stations.

  He answered on the fifth ring.

  “I was out feedin’ the dog,” he said. “What’s up?”

  I told him what Bev had said about the way we had obtained evidence.

  “Well, Bubba-son, Beverly’s thinking on her feet, but in this case she’s wrong. You see, cop gets information like that, it’s suspicious, but someone ain’t a law officer breaks and enters, gets information and turns it over to the police, then it can be used in court. ’Course, you got to face the breaking and entering charge.”

  “How do we get around that?”

  “I’m not sure we do. My suggestion is we leave Billy out of it. He’s in deep enough doo-doo as it is. But you and me, we could take the rap, or I could.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Glad you said that. I wasn’t going to do it. I was just being melodramatic. I won’t let you take it either.”

  “Never planned on it. In fact, I’d rather neither of us took it.”

  “Maybe we ought to pin it on Billy after all,” Arnold said.

  “Ha. Ha. Isn’t there a way around all this?”

  “Might be. How well you know this lawyer?”

  “He woulft""0em" wdn’t suck poison out of my balls I got snake bit there, but I know him well enough. He’s a good lawyer, I can say for sure. Well connected. Something of an opportunist. He’s won some high-powered cases.”

  “Then lend an ear,” Arnold said. “There might be a way around our problem. A lawyer can call up the powers that be, say, ‘Hey, I got some evidence comes to me from a client, but I can’t say who ’cause the client is a thief. He was breaking and entering and panicked cause he heard a night watchman, grabbed what he could. A couple of video tapes.’”

  “Sure,” I said. “I was a burglar, I’d have to have a couple of random video cassettes before I broke and ran.”

  “Say a burglar got home and watched the tapes, thought they looked kind of funny. Thought there might be something really big going on. And though the guy’s a thief, he doesn’t want any part of something like this. So he calls the lawyer and turns the cassettes in, but stays anonymous.”

  “So I tell Virgil I’m a thief?”

  “No. But he might play the game some, he thinks it’s important.”

  “There’s nothing on either of those tapes means much unless you’ve got the background on them. A burglar couldn’t see those and suspect much of anything.”

  “Hell, I don’t know, Bubba. I’m talking off the top here. Thing to do is jam with your lawyer, feel him out before you show him your etchings. Know what I mean?”

  “I suppose,” I said. “Something else I want to tell you. I don’t know why, but I want to.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I love you. I’ve always loved you. Been driving by your place for years. Stopping and looking but never going up to the door. I realize now, the pain I’ve felt all that time wasn’t anger or betrayal. It was loss.”

  “I know,” Arnold said.

  17

  I decided I’d go in and talk to the lawyer alone. I called Bill at the motel, explained my position and told him to hang tight.

  I called Griffith’s office. His secretary connected me to him.

  “Hey, que pasa, buddy?” Virgil said. “It’s been some kind of time. How’s the ole tallywhacker swinging?”

  “It isn’t swinging all that good, actually.”

  “Yeah? Then this isn’t just a touch base with a friend call?”

  “No. It’s business.”

  “Bad business?”

  “Pretty bad business. Not directly my business, but close enough.”

  “In other words, if life ain’t fucked enough, you got friends and family to help out?”

  “Good guess.”

  “That’s the way it us

  “I’d like to come in and talk to you about my problem. I don’t think I want to talk to you about it over the phone.”

  “Sure. But you can’t right now. I’m heading out. Told my partner and everyone here I got business to attend to, but what I got to do is go home and get a beer. It’s been one of those days already. I want to put my feet up and watch some ignorance on TV. What you got wait until tomorrow?”

  I thought that over. I could go to another lawyer, but I felt Virgil was the man I preferred to deal with. We could cut through all the legal shit and get right down to it. On the other hand, a day’s delay might make a big difference.

  “It’s pretty important,” I said.

  “Well, hell, if it’s important, we’ll do ’er. Why don’t you come out to the house though. We can t
ell some lies about all the women we’ve had and how there isn’t anyone we can’t whip.”

  He gave me the address and I drove over there.

  It was a pretty nice part of town and Virgil’s house was large, if plain looking, with a slightly yellowed lawn decorated with a chipped, stone duck on which someone, probably Virgil, had drawn in black marker, a pair of glasses.

  I rang the bell.

  The glass panel on one side of the door had been knocked out and patched with cardboard and masking tape. I was examining it when the door opened and Virgil smiled at me. He had gotten bigger, way we all had. His blond hair had thinned considerably and was cut short. He had a slightly blushed complexion, highlighted by his orange sports shirt and yellow tie. He was in his briefs and was barefoot. He and Fat Boy could have modeled together.

  “Get your ass on in here,” he said. “I was just slipping into something more comfortable. Sit the hell down and I’ll finish and get us a beer.”

  “I’ll skip the beer,” I said.

  “Suit yourself.”

  He disappeared into a back room and I sat down on the couch. The place looked as if it could legally qualify as a disaster area. Newspaper strewn from one end to the other, dirty paper plates all over the coffee table, a greasy paper sack overflowing with beer cans. There was a smeared reddish stain on the wall over the TV, and something dark, small and round was stuck in the middle of the stain. I got up for a better look and had to peel a sticky paper plate off my shoe. I dropped it on the floor, went over and examined the wall.

  I was pretty certain it was pepperoni.

  Virgil came in. He was wearing a pair of blue and white Bermuda shorts and a white T-shirt with Kill All Lawyers written on it in black.

  “Nice shirt,” I said.

  He used both hands to pinch the shirt away from his chest, held it a moment, then let it go. “Stenciled that on there myself. That’s pizza on the wall, by the way.”

  “I thought I recognized a pepperoni. How are the other rooms decorat romyself. ed? Cheese and sausage?”

  “Wife threw that at me.”

  “Carolyn, isn’t it?”